Budgeting process flow
The Budgeting application is divided into three main processes: setup, processing, and accessing data. This section focuses on setting up the Budgeting application and how it is used to organize budget data to forecast spending amounts.
Setup
The core of the Budgeting application is budget entry. When you enter budget information, you can organize the data in a particular company, accounting unit, and account. During budget entry, you determine how to calculate the budgets based on the budget components (units, amounts, and rates) that you define. You also can forecast budgets for each period, by quarter, or annually.
As you enter budget data, consider these features that affect budgets. These are optional procedures that you can use depending on your methods for defining budgets:
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Global factors
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User class
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Spread codes
Maintenance options enable you to change, copy, or delete budgets, create new budgets from existing data, transfer budget amounts, consolidate multiple budgets, and create different versions of the same budget.
Computed budgets provide an alternative method for creating budgets. A computed budget uses customized formulas (compute statements) that you create to determine how a budget is calculated.
Processing
You will use the Budgeting application to perform a variety of transaction processes. In addition to processing double entry budgets (budget journal entries that you create directly in Budgeting), you can interface transactions from other Lawson and non-Lawson application. You also can perform special processing functions, such as budget editing. Budget editing lets you check (edit) your budget for available funds as new commitments and encumbrances are added and released.
Accessing data
Accessing data that you have collected is a vital part of using the Budgeting application. After you set up and process your budgets, you can analyze and report on budget data for your company. You can use the reporting functionality to make important business decisions.
Budgeting: a big picture
To represent the Budgeting application's major processes, this user guide is divided into three main parts.
This diagram illustrates Budgeting's three main processes, breaks the processes down into sub-processes, and serves as a reminder of where you are in the big picture:
